Nothing Goes Right for Trojans

With the losses piling up, a former teammate recently thrown off the team and plagued by the worst shooting slump of the season, USC appeared to finally concede the season.

On past good nights, USC’s offense rarely frightened anybody, but with shots rattling in and out of the basket--almost on every shot--the Trojans fell to California, 73-43, Thursday before 2,178 at the Sports Arena.

How bad was it for the Trojans ? In the first half, USC scored only 16 points on six-of-30 shooting (20%) from the field and were held scoreless for more than five minutes.

Their 43-point total was 18 points below their previous low this season.

Almost as woeful, the Golden Bears (9-11, 5-6 Pacific 10) shot 34.6% in the first half and finished the game shooting 40.7%, making 24 of 59 shots.

“I’m at a loss for words,” USC Coach Henry Bibby said in a hoarse whisper. “We just couldn’t score and they couldn’t score either.”

Returning home for three games, the Trojans were looking forward to some payback against the Bears, who beat them last month by 10 points.

But USC, a team that had stretched top-10 opponents such as Kansas and Arizona to their limits, with an aggressive, attacking defense, lacked anything against Cal.

“Maybe the game . . . maybe the whole season has been one big test,” said freshman guard Kevin Augustine, scoreless in 26 minutes of play.”Tonight seemed like everything went against us, like that basket had a lid on it. It can’t get much worse than this.”

USC (7-14, 3-8) has lost three games in a row and seven of their last eight.

After an energetic start, the bunches of missed shots appeared to frustrate the Trojans.

“I thought we had some good practices this week,” said junior guard Elias Ayuso. “I don’t understand what went wrong.”

In a dismal first half, senior guard Gary Johnson was one of seven from the floor, junior Elias Ayuso was 0 for five, and the Trojans leading scorer, junior guard Adam Spanich, averaging 13.4 points a game, shot only twice and missed both.

Spanich still led the Trojans in scoring for the game with 11 points but also had a season-high six turnovers.

The Trojans shot a season-low 25.9% (15 for 58) from the field.

The awful shooting continued in the second half. Only Spanich and Cal guard Geno Carlisle, who scored 23 points on eight-of-18 shooting, finished in double figures.

The Bears, who outrebounded the Trojans, 53-34, snapped out of their slump first.

“We rebounded and pushed the ball down the court for some easy buckets,” said Sean Lampley who scored nine points. “I think our defense was the difference in the game.”

Leading, 33-26, with 13:41 to play, Cal surged to a 20-9 run and by the time Carlisle made a three-pointer with 6:05 left to put the Bears up, 56-35, the Trojans appeared out of their misery.

“Our guys finally realized that if we play defense, we can be in any game,” said Cal Coach Ben Braun. “We talked about the importance of defense and it was a great defensive effort for my team.”

Bibby chuckled when heard Braun’s remarks.

“I thought they played well,” Bibby said. “But we had some open looks and just missed them early . . . they were flat [offensively] but we were just flatter.”